Peas in a Pod
by Suicidal Mickey Mouse
Summary: A one shot about the Saturday afterwards. She didn’t know why she was agreeing. He didn’t know why he was offering. But they were. A purely Claire and Bender fic.


Disclaimer: This may come as a shock to you, but I don't own it. And technically, the "blow sunshine up your ass" line is from Top Gun. Just remember that the movie wasn't actually made when this takes place.

Author's notes: This is a one shot occurring on the following Saturday. It features only Claire and Bender, because I think they needed to sort things out a bit more before they could be together. Everything that happens in the week is pretty much explained, but if you have questions, ask in your review. The punch line to the joke will be at the very end of the story.

Another Saturday had come and John Bender was back in his seat at the Sherman High School Library. He wasn't surprised at his position. He had put himself there on purpose. Not that the world needed to know it. There was nobody in the library with him, but he was perfectly fine with that. It made the time pass a lot faster if he was alone. Things would be quieter. Maybe he'd be able to put some of his thoughts together and get them organized. That was what these Saturday detentions were for.

He glanced at the clock. His favorite part was coming right up. Vernon would be entering the room soon, if nothing but to assure that Bender didn't go with out a good insult before leaving him alone to let it stew inside of his mind for a while. And sure enough, true to his schedule, Richard Vernon entered the room in a suit that reminded Bender of a Miami Vice episode. The only difference about today was that Vernon was accompanying another student. Claire Standish.

"Take your seat." Vernon was in a fine mood, Bender could tell. "The two of you have eight hours. I want another essay on who you think you are. The door still hasn't been fixed, but I'll be in here to check on you frequently. Sit in silence. Don't move. If you even breathe too loudly and I catch you, you'll be in here again. Am I understood?"

Claire took the seat she had sat in on the last Saturday. "Crystal clear." She muttered, placing her bag underneath the desk.

"Oh yes sir." John sat forward, clasping his hands together. "I'll be a perfect angel."

"Bender the day that you become an angel is the day that my dick sprouts wings." Vernon practically spat.

Bender leaned back. "Well that would be awkward." He paused. "I think if that happened you'd have to switch to boxers sir. Briefs would just be too constricting."

Claire rolled her eyes as Vernon glared. "I'll be watching you Bender. There won't be any monkey business this time."

"That wounds me Rich. Do I look like a monkey to you?" Bender shook his head. "I'm telling you, there is a lack of class with the teaching staff these days."

"Shut up you little shit! I'm just outside. So when you try your little escape plan, be careful. You wouldn't want to trip and land on my fist now would you?" Vernon quickly turned and left the library, the door closing with a resounding thud.

Between the two detentionees there was a bit of silence. Claire started tapping her perfectly manicured nails on the desk; John started to pick at the fraying hole in his jeans. This went on for a while. But it couldn't last. "Will you stop that!" Bender finally half-shouted.

"Stop what?" Claire turned around halfway in her chair, innocently.

"Tapping your nails!" Bender used a spastic hand gesture to accentuate his point. "It's driving me insane."

Claire nodded. "OK, fine." She turned back around.

"It's like a cadence of ants is marching in here…wait, did you just agree to stop?" Bender stopped himself. At first he hadn't heard her agreement.

Again she turned around. "Yeah."

"But that would mean you're being considerate." He started balling up the thread he had pulled from the hole in his jeans. "And we all know that you're not in the least bit considerate." This comment was accompanied by what he liked to call, the famous John Bender condescension tone; everyone else liked to call it the asshole tone.

Claire's face, which had been neutral, hardened slightly. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means exactly what it sounds like, Princess." He put his feet up on the desk, sticking the ball of string in his pocket. "You have no consideration for the little people."

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about Brian, and Allison, hell, you couldn't even bring yourself to talk to Andy, and he's a sport. Are you really that great that you couldn't bring yourself to even talk to a fucking sport?" Bender was mad and she could tell. "Sounds pretty shitty and inconsiderate to me."

Claire didn't allow herself to crack. "My friends were all over me this week. If I could have gotten away for a while things would have been different."

"To hell with your friends." John scoffed.

"I told you all that it would happen." Claire shot right back. "I told you all exactly what would happen. And it may make me a shitty person, but it's the truth."

"It makes you a bitch is what it does." John's feet came off from the desk, and he slammed his hands down on the desk in front of him. "Do you really think that those people that you hang out with are really your friends? Do you think that no matter what happens to you they'll stick by you and be supportive?"

"They're a hell of a lot more supportive than you'll ever be. All that ever comes out of your mouth is negativity."

"I'm certainly never gonna blow sunshine up your ass! But Allison or Andy would have!" Bender glared. "If your parents end up getting the divorce, which would be such a travesty for you I might add, and you end up living with daddy, but all of daddy's money goes to the drunk mother you have waiting in the Caribbean, and you have to ride the bus with all the lower beings because Daddy's BMW got impounded when he couldn't make the payments, and then his credit cards are cut, do you really think that those prissy ass bitches are gonna give a flying fuck about what happens to you!"

Claire stood up quickly and slapped him. "You know nothing! Get it? You don't know what the hell you are talking about! Just shut the hell up!" She turned to walk back to her chair.

"That's a real sting coming from you Claire." John barely flinched from the slap. She turned back around. "I mean it. If we whored you up a bit, you know, put some more heavy makeup on you, smear it a little, dishevel the appearance, you and my dad would get along great."

"Fuck you."

"I really don't think that that would be appropriate on school property Claire."

This time she balled her hand into a fist, and threw it with all of her might into his eye. "Shut the fuck up John."

"You know, I have just as many feelings as you do…" John trailed off. "Sound familiar?" Claire didn't respond. "You know at the end of the day I thought you really had changed. But then again, it was all an act. You didn't actually lower yourself to kiss me. You pretended to. That's all you do isn't it? Act. You don't actually have those feelings you claim to have, and that you claim everybody else has. You don't give a shit. You just wanted everybody to think that you did." He could see that she was openly crying, but he didn't stop. "I'll bet that when Daddy saw your missing earring, you told him that somebody stole it. You couldn't possibly let him know that you had given it to a boy like me, could you? Then he might take away his plastic.

"I'm glad I didn't let myself actually think that you meant anything by everything that you di—I mean pretended to do. A bitch like you can make things pretty confusing, but I guess I just proved that I could hold my own."

"Go to hell." Claire spoke the three words, shaking her head before she started sprinting up the library's spiral staircase and going to a corner where she couldn't be seen.

Bender put his feet back up on the desk, not bothering to even check his eye, knowing from previous experiences that it would swell a little, but nothing too serious. It was less than a minute later when Vernon opened up the door.

"What the hell is going on in here?" He glanced around. "Where's the girl?"

"She ran out the back door sir." Bender lied in his "helpful" tone. "I tried to stop her, but she hit me. I would have done more, but I was brought up never to hit a girl." He briefly watched Vernon's reaction. "No matter how much of a bitch she is." He added, testing the principal's resolve.

"I'll be back to deal with you later." Vernon pointed in a way that he thought was menacing. "You better stay put until I get back. And take your feet off of that desk."

Vernon started walking to the back of the library as Bender called out cheerily, "Catch you later Dick!" happy that he had managed to send the principal on a wild goose chase.

Claire figured she had holed herself up in her corner for about an hour. Vernon still hadn't returned from the search that Bender had sent him on. Outwardly, she wanted to curse John; he had completely torn her apart, and gotten her into more trouble with the principal. Inwardly she wanted to thank him; he had prevented Vernon from seeing her while she was a wreck, even if it had purely been for the purpose of getting her into trouble.

She had cried for a while, but her tears had stopped. He was right, no matter how much she didn't want to admit, John Bender was right. She thought maybe he could have picked a nicer way to go about telling her, but the way he did it was pure Bender for her.

With a sigh she picked herself up off the floor, and wiped her face. She knew it was a futile attempt; her makeup had to be horrible by now. The slowly she walked back down the stairs, and kept walking until she was standing next to John where he was laying across the table staring at the ceiling. "If it didn't mean anything to you, than why are you still wearing my earring?"

The door opened before he could respond, but he sat up. "Well, it looks like you'll have company for the next few Saturdays because your little friend is nowhere to be…" Richard Vernon trailed off at the sight of Claire. "Oh you're back." He almost smiled in a sadistic manner. "Come with me. I'm afraid that both of you poor excuses for human beings will be spending the rest of your Saturday on your own. Off the desk Bender."

As Vernon took Claire out of the library, John thought about the question she had asked. He hated how she had picked up on that. It shouldn't have happened. He should have taken the earring out, but he just couldn't bring himself to do it.

With a resigned sigh to continue hating her, Bender walked to the library's front desk grabbing a pen, and a piece of paper.

Bender couldn't believe what he was doing. He couldn't figure out why he was crawling through the air duct, just to see the girl he had decided was worthless while she was locked up in that closet. In his back pocket, a piece of paper was folded waiting to be dropped.

Again, the silence in the duct was getting to him. So he did what he always did. He told himself a joke. "One day, Superman was flying across the sky, and he notices Wonder Woman lying asleep, but stark naked on a beach blanket. So he decides to go down and get some. So after he had done the deed, he flew away. Then Wonder Woman got up and said, 'What was that?' and the Invisible Man said…"

John stopped talking when he realized he was above the closet. He reached to his back pocket, and grabbed the paper, then slipping it through the air duct. He could hear Claire as she read it.

"Mind if I drop in?" Claire refolded the paper and sighed. "I doubt me saying no will stop you." She directed her eyes to the ceiling.

Bender opened up the air duct, and dropped down. "You're right it wouldn't."

He took a seat across from her on the floor. Again, Claire wasn't sure whether or not to be mad. "What do you want?"

"I got bored." He shrugged.

Claire gave a quiet, short laugh. "So even though you hate my guts, you'll come and visit me, just because you're bored?"

He shrugged again. "That and you're the only one who will just give me the silent treatment."

Claire briefly bit her lip. "I'm sorry about hitting you."

"I've had worse." John just wrote the apology off.

"But you were right. All I am is a shitty little bitch."

Somehow, when they came out of her mouth, they sounded a lot worse to Bender. "I only called you a bitch. And shitty. I didn't call you a shitty bitch. And I never called you little."

"Whatever." Claire shook her head sending them back into a silence.

Bender almost started to pick the hole in his jeans again, but stopped himself. "What did you mean when said that I didn't know what I was talking about?"

"I meant that you haven't been to my house, or gone through the day as me, so you couldn't know why I am the way am."

"Care to explain?" It was a shot in the dark for Bender. He didn't even know why he was asking. But he couldn't explain much about that day.

"Explain why you're still wearing my earring." She challenged.

"Not gonna happen Princess."

"Then no. I don't care to explain." Claire looked at her nails starting to pick at one. "Why do you care anyways?"

"Why do you care about the earring?" John gave her a taste of her own medicine. She didn't answer. "I'm afraid if you don't tell me then I can't tell you."

"Ass."

"Forgive me, I thought we had a 'You show me yours, I'll show you mine,' kind of deal going."

Claire rolled her eyes again. But she answered. "I just don't understand how you can claim to hate me so much, yet you don't let go of something that represents me." Bender didn't respond at all. "Well I told you."

"Come on, let's get out of here." He stood up.

"And go where?"

He glanced around. "Somewhere that doesn't resemble a prison." Claire didn't stand. "Come one. We'll go through the duct. Vernon will never catch on. He's too much of a dumbass."

"Not unless you tell me where we're going." She shook her head.

John thought for a moment. "The music room. We'll go to the music room. I'll even crawl first so you won't be able to accuse me of looking at your ass."

"Gee. How kind of you." Claire stood.

She didn't know why she was agreeing. He didn't know why he was offering. But they were.

In the music room, Claire sat down behind the piano. Bender had chosen to go to the xylophone. They were almost being civil again, and it was almost a new feeling. "I'm sorry for being a shitty little bitch." She spoke up.

"Tell the others." Bender picked up two mallets. "I could care less about you being a shitty little bitch. Most of the time I'm a shitty little bastard."

"But you stood up for them. And you have been nice before."

"So?" Bender got partially defensive. It wasn't part of his character to be nice.

"So…deep down, you're a nice guy. Why do you keep getting these detentions?"

"You saw that scar." That's all he was determined to say. To prevent more questions, he began pounding loudly on the xylophone, his poundings morphing slowly into Heart and Soul. Claire just watched. After a minute or so he stopped. "What about you? Did you skip school to go shopping again?"

She started to remove her brown leather jacket. "That's what I've been telling people." She took a leaf out of John's book. She herself started playing Heart and Soul on the piano. After one cycle, John started playing the counter melody. So they just played for a while.

He wasn't sure why they had stopped when they did, but they did. "Why do you really skip school then?" He stepped away from the xylophone, and jumped up to sit on the piano.

"Get off of there." Claire urged. "You're gonna break it."

"Singers in the 30s always did it." John scoffed. "So why do you really skip school, if you're not shopping?"

"Singer's in the 30s weren't 160 pounds." Claire reached up to push him off the piano, and her sleeve rolled up around her shoulder.

The skin beneath it caught John's eye. "What was that?"

"Nothing." Claire quickly went to fix her sleeve, forgetting that he was on the piano.

John gently grabbed her wrist. "Princess, I know what nothing is. That's not nothing."

Claire closed her eyes. She had been prepared to avoid this. He already thought she was a liar. This would just make things worse. There was a war within her head; trying to decide whether or not she should tell a lie or the truth. Finally her resolve broke. "It's the reason that I'm skipping school." John let go of her wrist. "I lied about what I did. I skipped to go take care of my mom. Ever since they started fighting….well you were right. She is a drunk."

"Oh."

"She's just not in the Caribbean. I keep skipping school to try and take care of her. To make sure she doesn't trash the house, just passes out of the couch or something. But she doesn't recognize me and well…you saw."

"Yeah." Bender surprised him self with his next move, going to the piano bench and sitting next to her, allowing her to lean her head on his shoulder. "I guess we're just two fucked up peas in a pod."

And so they sat for most of the day. Once in a while they would say something quietly. When it got closer to the end of the day Claire spoke up. "We should probably get back to our assigned detention places. Vernon must be having a cow by now."

John shrugged. "OK, let's go to the library." He stood and went to the door. Claire followed.

They both were sitting in the library just a few minutes later. "So what happens now?" Claire asked.

Bender leaned back in his chair. "The way I see it, there are two options. You can go home to your parents, and your rich bitch friends, or after we're let out of here, you can come with me, and go apologize to the rest of the guys, and tell them the truth."

Claire barely thought. "I'll go with you."

"That's good." Bender nodded. Again they fell into a silence. "Vernon wants another of those stupid essays on who we are." He glanced at the clock. "We don't have much time to do it. Not that I care or anything…but he wants it. And who are we to disappoint good old Dick."

Claire started to smile. "I'll take care of it." She went to go get a piece of paper. As she sat down again, the door opened.

Vernon was red-faced. "Where the hell of you two pieces of shits been!"

"Right here sir." Bender answered plainly. "We've been here the entire time."

"Bull shit. I put runaway girl here in the closet."

"No you didn't sir." Claire followed Bender's lead. "I've been in this seat the entire time, just like you told me too." Then she went back to writing the essay.

"I don't know what's going on in here but when I find out, both of you are going through the wringer." Richard glared.

"As fun as that sounds Dick, it's gonna have to wait. Time for us to go." Bender pointed at the clock.

"I'll have it figured out by next Saturday, when I'll see you both."

Claire gathered her things and stood as did John. "Here's your essay." They coolly walked out of the library.

Richard Vernon read the paper under his breath. "Dear Dick, we're just two fucked peas in a pod."

That's the end of that. Let me know what you think about it please.

The entire joke that Bender was telling himself is:

One day, Superman was flying across the sky, and he notices Wonder Woman lying asleep, but STARK NAKED on a beach blanket.  
So…he decided to go down & get some.

So after he had done the deed, he flew away. Then Wonder Woman got up and said "What was THAT?" And the Invisible Man said "I don't know... but my butt sure hurts."


End file.
